[369] Dom. James I. xvi. 116.
[370] In the Calendar of State Papers, Mrs. Everett Green, as has been said, quite gratuitously and without warrant from the original documents, uniformly describes him as "Father Owen," or "Owen the Jesuit." Mr. Gardiner (Hist. i. 242) has been led into the same error.
It is not impossible that Owen had some knowledge of the conspiracy, though the course adopted by his enemies seems to afford strong presumption to the contrary. It must, moreover, be remembered that, as Father Gerard tells us, he and others similarly accused, vehemently protested against the imputation, while in his case in particular we have some evidence to the same effect. Thomas Phelippes, the "Decipherer," of whom we have already heard, was on terms of close intimacy with Owen, and in December, 1605, wrote to him about the Plot in terms which certainly appear to imply a strong conviction that his friend had nothing to do with it.
"There hath been and yet is still great paynes taken to search to the bottom of the late damnable conspiracy. The Parliamente hit seemes shall not be troubled with any extraordinarie course for their exemplarye punishment, as was supposed upon the Kinges speeche, but onlye with their attaynder, the more is the pitye I saye."—Dom. James I. xvii. 62.
[371] Stowe MSS. 168, 54.
[372] This version of the deposition is interesting as being a form intermediate between the draft of November 8th and the finished document of November 17th. The passages cancelled in the former are simply omitted without any attempt to complete the sense of the passages in which they occurred. Those "ticked off" are retained.
[373] Stowe MSS. 168, 58.
[374] I.e., the Archduke Albert, and his consort the Infanta, daughter of Philip II., who, as governors of the Low Countries, were usually so designated.
[375] "Nous avons bien voulu aussy par ces presentes, nous mesmes vous asseurer que ce qu'il [Edmondes] vous en a desja declaré, est fondé sur tout verité; et vous dire en oultre, que ces meschantes Creatures d'Owen et Baldouin, gens de mesme farine, ont eu aussi leur part en particulier a ceste malheureuse conspiration de Pouldre."—Phillipps' MS. 6297, f. 129.
[376] Stowe, 168, 65.